Five-Legged Iguana

PARIS, JE T’AIME
(Review)

An impressive array of directors are assembled for Paris, Je T’Aime, a collection of 18 five minute shorts set in and around certain sections of modern-day Paris. Ably assisted by an equally impressive ensemble, the 21 directors (3 shorts are co-directed) bring their visions of the City of Lights to the screen, and collectively produce this heartfelt cinematic portrait of life, love, and loss.
A shortlist of stand-outs would be pointless, as this film comes tantalizingly close to a clean sweep: these shorts are bittersweet and poignant, lives telescoped into a handful of minutes, sections of time that serve to illuminate entire existences.

If there are any entries that compromise that clean sweep however, they’re Vincenzo (Cube) Natali’s “Quartier de la Madeleine“ and Bruno Podalydes‘ “Montmartre.“
While Podalydes‘ entry—which opens the film—suffers in my eyes merely due to a personal pet peeve I have (characters talking to themselves), Natali’s effort is quite possibly the single misfire in this entire endeavour.
Though it is still pretty to look at (as are a vast majority of the film’s shorts), “Quartier de la Madeleine,“ which features Elijah Wood, just seems to be off-key, tonally all wrong. And it’s not because this is one of the more fanciful entries; Sylvain (Les Triplettes de Belleville) Chomet‘s whimsical tale of mimes and love, “Tour Eiffel,“ manages to be funny, moving, and magickal all at the same time. “Quartier de la Madeleine” just seems to be a misstep in an otherwise excellent selection of shorts. (I can live with Podalydes’ talking out loud in “Montmartre.”)

There are also a number of pleasant surprises, particularly cinematographer extraordinaire Christopher Doyle’s quirky entry, “Porte de Choisy.” Appropriately enough, like a Chinese puzzle box, “Porte de Choisy“ has another surprise within: director Barbet Schroeder as Monsieur Henny.

Without a doubt, there are some excellent shorts herein. But as art is ultimately a very subjective thing, whether or not the 18 shorts cohere into a single film rests entirely on the audience’s willingness to surrender themselves to the wizardry of the directors and their performers, and the vivid portrait they paint of a contemporary metropolis that quite possibly is not the common perception of “Paris.”

Paris, Je T’Aime is a genuinely moving collection of stories, snapshots of yearning and melancholy, of hope and regret, of loves lost, and found, tiny dramas played out under the shimmering lights of Paris in just under two hours, two hours that fly past quickly, as only the magick of love and cinema can make them.

Parting shot 1: Paris, Je T’Aime was originally intended to be made up of 20 short films, each set in a Paris arrondissement, but contributions from Christoffer Boe (“15th Arrondissement”) and Raphael Nadjari (“11th Arrondissement”) were dropped by producer Claudie Ossard; purportedly, they did not fit in with the rest of the entries.
Given my problems with “Quartier de la Madeleine,” I have to wonder what Boe and Nadjari had to say about Paris: did they have aliens blowing up the Arc de Triomphe? Or did they decide to pick up where 28 Weeks Later left off?

Parting shot 2: For the record, here’s an alphabetical list of the directors and their respective contributions:

Olivier Assayas: “Quartier des Enfants Rouges” (with Maggie Gyllenhaal)
Frederic Auburtin and Gerard Depardieu: “Quartier Latin” (with Ben Gazzara and Gena Rowlands; Rowlands also wrote the short’s script)
Gurinder Chadha: “Quais de Seine”
Sylvain Chomet: “Tour Eiffel”
Joel and Ethan Coen: “Tuileries” (with Steve Buscemi)
Isabel Coixet: “Bastille” (with Miranda Richardson)
Wes Craven: “Pere-Lachaise” (with Emily Mortimer, Rufus Sewell, and Alexander Payne)
Alfonso Cuaron: “Parc Monceau” (with Nick Nolte)
Christopher Doyle: “Porte de Choisy”
Richard LaGravenese: “Pigalle” (with Bob Hoskins and Fanny Ardant)
Vincenzo Natali: “Quartier de la Madeleine”
Alexander Payne: “14th Arrondissement”
Bruno Podalydes: “Montmartre”
Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas: “Loin du 16eme”
Oliver Schmitz: “Place des Fetes”
Nobuhiro Suwa: “Place des Victoires” (with Juliette Binoche and Willem Dafoe)
Tom Tykwer: “Faubourg Saint-Denis” (with Natalie Portman)
Gus Van Sant: “Le Marais” (with Marianne Faithfull and Gaspard Ulliel)

Parting shot 3: Interestingly enough, while Payne appears in Craven’s contribution, Craven appears in an uncredited role in Natali’s short.

Parting shot 4: Co-producer Emmanuel Benhiby is currently developing a film brand, “Cities of Love,” with the next project being New York, Je T’Aime.

(Paris, Je T’Aime OS’s courtesy of impawards.com.)